Top Ten Songs and a Review Conclusion

Hey y'all.  So what better way to end a series of music reviews than with a top ten list? Two, in fact?  So these are my top ten songs for Infected Mushroom and Daft Punk.  That is, the top ten I like to listen to.  While I normally like to be objective, this is music, and to call something a top ten song of a band, well, you've got to have pretty clear standards for why those particular songs are the best.  Here, these are just my personal favorites.

Let's start with Daft Punk.  I like a fair number of their songs, and Musique is good to play when I'm baking.  It keeps me going.  The only downside is that Daft Punk's best songs tend to be the more popular ones, making searches for hidden gems a difficult task.

Nitpickery: Discovery and the Musique Mixes

Hey y'all.  So I've been really hard on Daft Punk, but there's a reason why they got so popular.  Usually it's due to their singles rather than their full albums, but with Discovery they struck gold.  Not only do the songs feel like they're really an album, but the fun and funky sounds chosen to create the album are appealing and emotional.  It's surprising they went a more warm route after their edgy, avant guarde Homework, but hey, I'm just grateful they did. 

Thence came Discovery, the album that launched Daft Punk into the semi-approval of the mainstream, as well as attracting attention from the anime crowd for its conversion into the anime Interstella 5555.  It deserves its accolades, overall being a solid album that anyone can enjoy.

Homework Vs. Human After All

Hey y'all.  So I've decided to really sit and listen to early Daft Punk.  Because I've always been sort of stuck on the Discovery period, I haven't really given much of a listen to their first and third albums, Homework and Human After All.  Post listen, it's pretty clear that Discovery eclipses them both. While Discovery had not a single bad track (though I admit I'm not that fond of Digital Love), these other albums by Daft Punk are shockingly weak.  Only a few of the songs were really listenable, and I feel lucky that in my early electronic days, I bought Musique instead of either of those.

But people like Homework.  It's "important" to them, as a part of the history of electronic music. Even when people acknowledge its weaknesses, they seem compelled to talk about its importance in the grand scheme of things.  As for Human After All, people complain about it, saying it's the worst album Daft Punk has ever done.

Allow me to speak the controversial, but true.  Homework is only marginally better than Human After All.

Nitpickery: Random Access Memories

Hey y'all.  So I went on and on about how Daft Punk compares to Infected Mushroom, and my overall conclusion is that Infected Mushroom has aged well, and Daft Punk hasn't aged so much as completely changed gears.  To be fair, some of that is due to the popularity of Daft Punk and subsequent fan expectation.  More of it has to do with Daft Punk's general sound; because of IM's classical background, they can do any type of sound and make it their own.  Because Daft Punk is a sampling band, they have less flexibility in the types of sounds and influences they have.

As far as my own background with Daft Punk is, I wasn't a pure fan of theirs back in their heyday. Sure, I liked some of their songs, but I was focused on other things rather than them.  At one point I did buy a compilation album of theirs, and that was when I really started to like them -- now I own Discovery and Interstella 5555.  In other words, I was kinda late to the Daft Punk party.  All the same I did learn to understand why they were such an electronic powerhouse.  Their intelligent use of sampling was highly catchy and invigorating.  At the same time, part of me is suspicious of their fame, wondering if their masks and popular early albums disguised a couple of guys who weren't ready for their explosion of popularity.

But at the moment I'm here to complain about Random Access Memories.  Because why not?

Nitpickery: Random Access Memories -- It's Okay to Say No

Hey y'all.  Have you heard the rant wars about Daft Punk?  They've just released their new album, Random Access Memories, and it has been getting pretty polarized reviews.  On the one hand, you have the people who are disappointed that this album sounds pretty unlike anything else Daft Punk has done.  On the other, you have those who like the new sound and are irritated that anyone misses Daft Punk's old sound.  It's been really weird to read into, and you can get the picture pretty clearly by reading their iTunes reviews.